The song of the willow wren has been called singular and unique among our birds; and Mr Warde Fowler, who has best described it, says that it forms an almost perfect cadence, and adds, "by which I mean that it descends gradually, not, of course, on the notes of our musical scale, by which no birds in their natural state would deign to be fettered, but through fractions of one or perhaps two of our tones, and without returning upward at the end." Now, this arrangement of its notes, although very rare and beautiful, does not give the little song its highest æsthetic value. The secret of the charm, I imagine, is traceable to the fact that there is distinctly something human-like in the quality of the voice, its timbre. Many years ago an observer of wild birds and listener to their songs came to this country, and walking one day in a London suburb he heard a small bird singing among the trees. The trees were in an enclosure and he could not see the bird, but there would, he thought, be no difficulty in ascertaining the species, since it would only be necessary to describe its peculiar little song to his friends and they would tell him. Accordingly, on his return to the house he proceeded to describe the song and ask the name of the singer. No one could tell him, and much to his surprise, his account of the melody was received with smiles of amusement and incredulity. He described it as a song that was like a wonderfully bright and delicate human voice talking or laughingly saying something rather than singing. It was not until some time afterwards that the bird-lover in a strange land discovered that his little talker and laugher among the leaves was the willow wren. In vain he had turned to the ornithological works; the song he had heard, or at all events the song as he had heard it, was not described therein; and yet to this day he cannot hear it differently--cannot dissociate the sound from the idea of a fairy-like child with an exquisitely pure, bright, spiritual voice laughingly speaking in some green place.